The Call

I went to the office at 7 AM the morning of the end of the two week wait. I was excited, nervous, anxious and every other possible emotion you could think of (remember my hormone levels were still kinda wacky LOL). I returned home hoping they would call sooner rather than later. I tried to distract myself, but my mind was racing. What if they say that I'm not pregnant...AGAIN? How will I react? What will I do? I told God I would be okay...but was that the truth? Obviously if they say I'm pregnant I'll be ecstatic, but I don't want to go there....remember what happened the last time.

I sat, I cried, I tried relaxation techniques, I prayed, but nothing could get rid of the knot in my chest. Around 9 AM my cell  phone rang. It was the office. I took a deep breath. Trying to sound as calm as possible I said hello?

The voice on the other end was not the doctor. It was one of my favorite nurses. She said my name with exuberance....I still wouldn't allow myself to get excited. And then she said the words that my heart new was possible but my mind needed to hear. YOU'RE PREGNANT!!!!  She continues to tell me that my HCG levels were super high (The higher the better) and while typically the Doctor calls patients with the results she asked if she could deliver the good news herself.

Tears streamed down my face. God is so good!!! This was His timing. Sometimes we face challenges that seem impossible to overcome. I truly believe there is always a lesson to be learned. I learned to be even more thankful. Thankful that God saw fit to bless my husband and I.

I called my husband at work still crying to share the good news. It was our little secret. Our seeds were planted and now it was time to watch them grow.

Waiting...AGAIN

There is one part of this process that never gets any easier regardless of how many times you've done it. The two week wait is simply unavoidable. It is possibly one of the most mentally challenging parts of the process. You are still taking medication on a daily basis. You question every change in your body and basically, there is nothing you can do about it.

As a refresher, after the frozen transfer you have to wait for two weeks to find out if you are pregnant or not. So for two weeks there are no doctor visits and honestly no real way of telling if you're pregnant or not. Many of the symptoms that you may feel can simply be from the progesterone cause your hormones are all over the place. Some women may take drug store pregnancy test. I considered it, but those tests are not as effective as blood tests and didn't want to further add to my anxiety.

I try to be a positive person, but I couldn't help but expect the best and plan for the worst. I was so scared that there would be a repeat of what happened before.

I did a lot of praying during those two weeks. I let God know that I knew He had a plan for me and if this wasn't my time that I would be okay.

Finally the day came and the wait was over!

So what's been going on......

Well we decided to take a little break from IVF. It's a very involved process. Many woman choose to start a new cycle after a failed cycle, we felt it best to wait. I needed to refuel mentally. Initially I thought I was ready to jump back in the swing of things right away, but after taking a break I appreciated our rationale. We took time to simply relax. The most important thing was avoiding stress and staying calm. We took a few days and went away to just be alone. We had one of the best couple massages imaginable. Once the trip was over we returned to the doctor and started a new frozen cycle.

It was less involved compared to a fresh cycle. The trips to the office were weekly rather than daily. It felt less stressful having "gone through the process" already. The nurses and staff were so excited to have us back. Everyone was positive that this time we were going to be successful!

Although my heart was set on success my mind was still cluttered with the reality that there was a chance this time would not work either. I really had to focus on rebuilding my faith (Full Assurance In The Heart), knowing that success was attainable.

It wasn't an easy ride. This time we decided not to share what we were doing with anyone (hence why I am only now posting this entry). I had a few challenges with progesterone and had to flip flop between injections and suppositories. It was draining mentally but thank God I have a supportive husband who always knew the right thing to say when I felt like giving up.

On July 31st we went in for the frozen transfer of two embryos....

She said "Rain Rain Please Don't go away"

I guess I did what I said I wouldn't. I disappeared for a few months. I received an email from a friend asking where I had been. Apparently somebody wants to hear from me so guess what....I'M BACK!
The forecast is calling for rain and let me tell you it's gonna rain hard cause I have lots to say.

A whole lot has happened since my last post and I'll be sure to get you up to speed. But first let me address the question that I'm sure many of you are wondering....why did I stop writing? I find I write the most when I am "going through" something. It's my coping mechanism. It's that thing that helps me see a brighter tomorrow and gets me through. Now let me clarify. When things are good I can write too, I just tend to write more during intense situations because it's therapeutic. At some point in May/June I found myself in a place of normalcy. There wasn't much going on, I think I found peace and simply enjoyed living in it. I was also in a place of preparation. I knew that we were going to try again this time with a frozen cycle. Knowing that we decided not to be as open as to when we were starting a new cycle I was challenged with being able to share how I was feeling with you all. So I guess you can say I just kept things to myself. It was a very introspective time. Looking back it's what I needed. Moving forward I know I need to put more thoughts on paper. So I guess you can say it's raining all over again:)

If I could be anything.....

I think I would want to be a dancer. There is just something so beautiful about expressing yourself with your entire being. Being able to control and release muscles to create movement that sings.

I guess in a way I allow my words to do the dancing.
Poetry in motion.
Isolating phrases to create rhythmic prose is dancing I suppose.
An intellectual tap dance placing readers in a trance
Fixated on the next line
Feel the tempo keeping time
I two step around things on my mind
Shuffling through life I get my hustle on
I get sore if I do it to long
Hip hop watch me drop knowledge likes it hot
These aren't just words it's a talent that I've got
I'm a modern girl living a ballerina's dream
Cha cha with me if you want to be on my team
Cause if i could be anything......
©Rain


Ha.....there is that poetry I promised:)

The 90-10 Rule

Last year I received a card in the mail that said. "Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% how you react to it." So powerful and so true. When you really think about it, all of us have heard the wonderful stories about people who grew up with nothing and ended up being lawyers, doctors, executives, etc. We may not have a choice in the deck life has dealt, however we do have a choice on how we will deal with what we've been given. It may not seem fair (most of the time it isn't), but if we fix our attitude in such a way that we can get over the injustice, we just might be able to get to where we want to go a little bit faster. However if we stay down wallowing in our sorrows and throwing constant pity parties we end up going no where.

It's human nature to want to share your woes with someone else, unfortunately 90% of the time no one really cares! EVERYONE has something going on, so rather than spending most of your time drowning in your own sorrows, take time to think of someone else.

Studies have shown that people feel better when they are helping someone else. Spend 90% of your helping others and 10% having your own private pity parties. I guarantee you will look at the world in a whole different light. 

So I said I was a Poet...ha!

So I'm sure some of you are like, "she said she was a poet....well where the heck is the poetry?!" Good question. A lot of it is stuck in my head waiting for the right time to pour out. Something I'm sure many of you do not know is that I haven't really written anything in a while. Let me give you a little history about "Rain the Poet". I started writing poetry when I was in like 3rd grade. I even got published in the school news letter a few times. I fell in love with the Harlem renaissance and the poets of that time. I memorized poetry and would recite it during assemblies. I even translated Maya Angelou's Phenomenal Women into French and recited it at The Alliance Francais meeting. I am passionate about words written with so much meaning they literally dance off the page. In college I started writing longer poems which were considered spoken word. I didn't even realize what I was doing until I read it and people loved it. I started writing more and more. I was able to take an ugly situation and make it cry beautiful tears on a page. Then one day it stopped. My Aunt died, a horrible ugly death. I remember being in church writing ferociously a poem to honor her life. She never heard my poetry. I never had the chance to share it with her. But I was able to write this beautiful poem that was dedicated to her life. I took her passing very VERY hard. I was away at college away from family unable to leak out meaningful words from my pen. It was like her death sucked the life out of my creative ability to write beautiful prose. I would try and would end up hating what I wrote, so for a while I just stopped. It was a slow process but out of grief I pushed myself to return to the one thing that used to give me comfort. I fought through it and every now and then I am inspired and write something beautiful. It like she smiles down on me and returns life into my pen.

It's ironic even now 9 years later, I still struggle to write and share my poetry. It just doesn't come as easy as it used to. This post in particular has been in the "edit" field for over a month.  I was hoping to end with a few lines of poetry....but its just not happening, at least not this time. I will continue to try and hope that one day my gift will leak out and once again fill the lines of my notebook with words that paint pictures and leave memories. Until then...I digress.